1.1 Introduction
The literature of Ola Rotimi's “Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again” (Rotimi, 1977), as a general formulation, the ontological relatedness of drama and society has provided the anchor for various sociological perspectives on the development and growth of drama. Ola Rotimi are playwrights of longevity and extensive productive life. Their plays in terms of ideological frames and mechanics of composition seem to transcend the limit of the boundary set by any identified generation of Nigerian dramaturgy, and therefore cannot be pushed into any single periodic category with absolute fidelity. An aspect of this study will explore how these playwrights handle trans-generational issues with respect to their points of convergence and divergence.
Conversational Analysis aims to make its users aware of and able to describe and deconstruct vectors and effects in texts and semiotic materials generally which might otherwise remain to wield power uncritiqued. In their respects, Conversational Analysis may be a kind of wake up cal, or consciousness, rising about the coercive or anti-demo criticizing effects of the discourses we live by. This project focuses on an attempt to carry out a Critical Discourse Analysis of Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband has Gone Mad Again. This chapter therefore focuses on the purpose of study, scope of the study, justification, methodology, data description and author’s background.
1.2 Purpose of Study
The purpose of this project is to critically analyze Our Husband has Gone Mad Again by Ola Rotimi using Critical Discourse Analysis. Being that the analysis of a play is rarely done, the researcher is not aware of any previous attempt to do Conversational Analysis of the text Our Husband has Gone Mad Again.
1.3 Significance/Justification of Study
In the best knowledge of the researcher as a theoretical construct has not been used in analyzing Our Husband has Gone Mad Again by Ola Rotimi. Thus, the study is justifiable as it seeks to investigate the sociopolitical and cultural issues that are inherent in the text. It is also believed that this study will be an additional work in the scholarship of the study of Conversational Analysis, especially at the undergraduate level.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.4 Scope of the Study
This project will analyze Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again using Critical Discourse Analysis. It will analyze selected conversations and utterances in the text. There are a lot of Conversational Analysis elements but only some of them will be selected for the analysis of the text. The analysis will entail how power relations are decoded from the text that links to the society. Findings and conclusions will bring a temporary end to this research work.
1.5 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.6 Methodology
This project is basically a Critical Discourse Analysis or Ola Rotimi’s Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again. Some selected conversations and utterances will be selected from the text for analysis.
Norman Fairclough’s theory of Conversational Analysis has been chosen for the analysis of this research work, some elements have been selected from theory including the political and sociocultural issues which occur in the text and leads to the society. The textual analysis sociocultural analysis and the political issues of this text will be analyzed.
1.7 Data Description
The play, Our Husband has Gone Mad Again, is a political satire. It shows the follies and fables of the entire political system in Africa and Nigeria in particular, in a bid to correct some of its anomalies. It lampoons the protagonist Major Rahman Teslim Lejoka-Brown a former military officer who takes to politics with the motif that looks more of vanity patriotism. Ola Rotimi takes a comic swipe at the ideological misfits and opportunist who strut the ever accommodating political landscape of the continent Africa.
1.8 Author’s Background
Olawale Gladstone Emmanuel Rotimi, best known as Ola Rotimi was born in Sapele, former Bendel state of Nigeria on 13thApril, 1938, to an Ijaw mother and Yoruba father, so cultural diversity was a recurring theme in his work. He was a playwright, stage director, producer, actor, critic, scholar and a teacher. In his early age, he was exposed to a traditional Nigeria heritage of arts. He was educated at Methodist Boys High School in Lagos from 1952 to 1957. He went to Boston University for a bachelor’s degree in theatre arts where he studied play writing and directing. He later went to Yale University where he had masters in the arts after three years and retired to Nigeria in 1966. While in America, he got married to a French Canadian lady, Hazel a renowned artist, actress, singer and pianist. In Nigeria, Ola Rotimi took a job at the University of Ife, where he was a research fellow from 1966 to 1969 at the institute of African studies. He later became the head of creative arts and director at the University of Port Harcourt.
The dramatic works of Ola Rotimi are known throughout Africa and have made him one of the most significant playwrights on that continent. While he was at Yale University on a Rockefeller fellowship, his socio-political comedy Our Husband has Gone Mad Again was chosen as Yale’s student play of the year in 1966. Ola Rotimi examines Nigerian’s history and ethnic traditions in his works. Some of his published works are: Introduction to Nigerian Literature, The Gods Are not to Blame(London: Oxford University Press 1971), Kurunmi (Ibadan: University press Limited 1971), Our Husband has Mad Again (London: Oxford University press 1977), Ovourumwen Nogbaisi (Benin: London: Ethiopian and Oxford University press 1974), If : A Tragedy of the Ruled (Ibadan: Heinemann 1983). He was in Nigeria until his Nigeria until his death in 2001.
Ola Rotimi is sure to be remembered as a model in the literary genre whose views have shaped the conduct of theater and whose plays have demonstrated the power of drama to shape the thinking of the society and attempted to solve some of the problems encountered in everyday living.
